Chapter 697 - A Life Through Undeath

Talia remained quiet as they strolled through the Residential District, and Zeke struggled to come up with a way to shatter the silence.  Instead, he focused on his surroundings.  The city that the floor had become was absolutely enormous – so much so, that getting around required a localized teleportation system.  Fortunately, as seemed so often the case, where there was a need, the tower provided the solution.  Now, the entire floor was accessible through teleportation pads scattered throughout the district. 

They had taken one that had sent them hundreds of miles in an instant, and when Zeke reappeared on the other side, he found himself surrounded by a familiar aura.  Death hung in the air and suffused every square inch of the atmosphere.  In addition, the residents were all undead, though they moved about their days just like anyone else might have. 

Mundanity.

It was an inescapable facet of life.  No matter how powerful someone became, they were still beset by the same basic needs.  Food.  Water.  Shelter.  Companionship.  And the result of everyone working together to meet those needs was civilization.  It was a fundamental aspect of existence, regardless of one’s race. 

But for every rule, there were exceptions, and Zeke epitomized that down to his very core.  He wasn’t certain if he could exist without sustenance or rest, but even if he couldn’t, he could do without for so long that it the distinction was meaningless.  It was just one more way he had separated himself from everyone else. 

He wasn’t a person anymore.  He was a force of the divine.  A primordial without any true counterparts.  Even the gods, as powerful as they were, were not like him.  Suddenly, a wave of intense loneliness swept over him. 

One day, everyone he knew would be gone.  And yet, he would remain, likely unchanged except to slowly lose his grip on who he wanted to be.  When the timescale was eternity, madness was not just a possibility.  It was a certainty.  It might not happen for eons after everyone else in the universe was dead and gone, but it would happen nonetheless. 

“You’re a cheerful one,” Eveline remarked. “Please, say something to her before you drive me into a deep depression.”

“I can’t help it,” he replied inside his own mind. 

“I know you can’t.  Doesn’t make it any easier to listen to your morose musings on life, death, and eternity.”

He let out a mental sigh.  At least he would always have Eveline.  As far as he knew, her status as a mind spirit meant that she was functionally eternal as well.  So, he had company for his slow descent into madness. 

To distract himself from that line of thought, he focused on the people living in this section of the tower.  As he’d previously noted, they were all undead, but even with that characterization binding them together, they were as different from one another as any other collection of races.  There were run-of-the-mill zombies – though they were all sapient instead of the mindless creatures he’d fought in the Mortal Realm – going about their daily lives.  Specters, wights, and vampires too.  And a host of other types he had neither the knowledge nor the desire to classify.

An odd smell – like a sickly sweet decay – hung in the air as well.  It was cloying, but not strong enough to turn his stomach.  But then again, he’d seen and endured so many terrible things during his descent through hell, so his stomach had become a thing of iron.  It would take more than a little decaying flesh and an offensive smell to get a reaction from that thing. 

The architecture was similar to the rest of the floor, though there was a distinct cast to it that made it unique.  It put Zeke in mind of gothic churches and vampire movies, for some reason, though he couldn’t quite figure out why.  It was more of a feel than any major differences in the structures themselves. 

After a few more minutes, during which their passage drew more than a little attention, they reached a sprawling plaza.  It was mostly empty but for a few clumps of pedestrians, and at its center stood a hunk of rock.  Zeke only needed one look to know that it had come from Darukar. 

Around that monolith – which was nearly twenty feet high and twice as wide – stood a series of benches.  Talia led him to one, then sat.  Zeke followed her lead and settled in next to her. 

For a while, they sat in silence until, at last, Talia said, “Most of the living won’t come here.  Death hangs in the air and the living find most of our residents to be…unnerving.  They avoid this area.”

“That’s a natural treasure, isn’t it?” he asked, gesturing toward the hunk of stone.  It looked like it was a piece of a building.

“It is now,” Talia answered.  “We recovered it only a few years after you left.  Some of the others, they still make pilgrimages to the old city.  They want to see it, to be reminded of what they escaped.  There are wild undead there, you know.  Practically animals now.  At first, we tried to hunt them down and exterminate them, but they just kept returning.  We still don’t know how or where so many bodies came from.

“They don’t attack us, though,” she continued with a sigh.  “So, we just leave them alone now.  Cautionary tales.  Or maybe a promise of what would have happened if it wasn’t for you.  That’s why most of them worship you.”

“I wasn’t the only one there.”

She shrugged – a very human-like gesture that seemed out-of-place for her – then countered, “It doesn’t matter.  You were the key.  You saved them.  And even if turned out that you hadn’t, the tales have taken on a mind of their own.  You’re a combination of a folk hero, a god, and a champion.  They are fiercely loyal.”

If Zeke concentrated, he could feel that much.  The flows of divine energy were difficult to discern, but in the tower, things had grown much clearer.  And he could sense the dense web of faith feeding into his core where it was converted into divine energy. 

“The most pious among us could feel when you were struggling.  We led the way, praying and worshipping until things stabilized.”

Zeke frowned.  There had been plenty of times during his descent where his well of divine energy had swelled to unforeseen proportions.  He’d thought it a result of him simply digging deeper, but now, it seemed clear that he owed those moments – and ultimately, his survival – to his worshippers.

Which made him incredibly uncomfortable – a theme of late, and one he needed to grow accustomed to if he wanted to accomplish his goals. 

“Might want to figure out what those goals are before you get ahead of yourself.”

“I’m working on it,” Zeke said.  It wasn’t so much that he didn’t know what he wanted to do, but rather that he didn’t want to deal with the implications of doing it.  Killing a bunch of greater gods and joining the final battle against creatures whose very presence unmade reality came with a host of philosophical and ultimately existential questions.  He didn’t have answers to any of them yet.

Maybe he never would.

So, he asked aloud, “What about you?  What have you been doing all this time?”

“Trying to join you.”

“In hell?”

She nodded.  “It turns out that being undead doesn’t make me immune to the corruption of that side of reality,” she stated.  “I tried, too.  I really did, Zeke.  I wanted to help you, but I failed.  I couldn’t endure the corruption.  I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

She didn’t immediately respond to that, but her silence spoke volumes about the guilt she felt.  It didn’t make sense, but then again, Talia had long been troubled.  After all, her own mother had sent her to be sacrificed in an attempt to resurrect her father.  That kind of thing had psychological consequences, many of which were exacerbated when that process turned her into a sapient undead. 

Back then, she’d been a vulnerable teenage girl, and the horror she faced when people figured out what she was had taken its toll on her.  A century might have passed since then, but those scars ran so deep that it would take another couple of lifetimes before they even began to fade.

If ever.

After that, she’d latched onto Zeke as a surrogate big brother, becoming fiercely protective of him.  It had all culminated in her nearly killing Abby after the latter’s betrayal.  That she hadn’t done it was a show of self-restraint that Zeke felt was only possible because Talia had known just how much he would’ve disapproved. 

In any case, they’d been separated upon ascension into the Eternal Realm, and that had forced her to make quite a lot of progress toward becoming her own person.  She’d done quite well for herself – not surprising, given her rare gifts – becoming instrumental in the defense of her adopted home.

But it had been destroyed.  Its people had mostly been killed.  Only a relative handful – a few thousand at most – had been spared. 

That isolation had furthered Talia’s mental disconnect from everyone but Zeke.  So, it wasn’t a shock to find that she’d tried and failed to follow him into the pit.  Nor did it surprise Zeke to discover that her failure had prompted a wave of guilt that had likely driven her further into that quagmire of psychological problems. 

“What did you do then?”

“I found another way.  Ascension.  From what you told me…it was a lot easier.  Just a series of tests meant that were a lot like fighting through a dungeon.  Nothing I hadn’t seen before,” she said.  “Since then, I have been preparing for your return.  I fought in the void worlds.  The unclaimed lands.  I’ve grown stronger too.  I am ready to help you to do what needs to be done.”

Zeke leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.  He could already feel Talia’s power.  He didn’t need a skill to know that she was at the pinnacle of what was possible for a lesser god.  But the gulf between her status and that even the least of the greater gods was practically an ocean. 

Sitting beside him, she seemed so delicate.  As if an errant breeze could destroy her.  They all did.  Ultimately, that was the problem, too.  That was why he couldn’t connect.  Not really.  Every time he tried, he ran up against a chasm of disparate experiences that he wasn’t certain could ever be spanned. 

“Giving up already?  It’s been less than a month.”  Eveline asked inside his head.

“No.”

“Then what are you thinking?”

“That the world isn’t fair,” he said.  Indeed, he’d once harbored notions that his friends could accompany him on his long journey to the top.  Back then, he hadn’t really known anything about what awaited in the Ethereal Realm – or beyond – but that didn’t matter.  From his perspective, if he could do it, then so could his friends.

But that just wasn’t true.

Just like not everyone could make it to the major leagues, there were hard caps on everyone’s potential.  And what’s more, Zeke couldn’t imagine just sitting around and waiting for his friends to catch up.  Even if it was feasible, that level of stagnation would drive him mad.

And there was also no chance that the greater gods like Oda, Aja, and Shar Maelaine would ever allow it.  Eventually, they would attack, and unless he wanted to lose everyone, he needed to work towards readying himself for just such an occasion.

It was a difficult pill to swallow, but a necessary one.

“Tell me some stories,” he said aloud, glancing toward Talia.  “Of your adventures.  I want to hear all about them.”

She smiled.  That never would have happened before, when she’d been rendered emotionless.  Had that been a facet of her undead nature, or was it just a defense mechanism so she didn’t need to confront her feelings for what had been done to her?  Zeke had no idea, but seeing her smile warmed his heart. 

After that, she embarked on a long tale detailing some of her adventures.  The past hundred years had been incredibly eventful, and she’d fought thousands of battles, big and small, always emerging victorious.  Soon, she reached the story of her ascension, and she revealed that her class and race had changed the moment she’d reached the Ethereal Plane. 

Apparently, her body blended life and death, giving her domain over both.  Many of her skills had been altered as well, incorporating her new nature.  As Talia described everything, Zeke could see that she was proud of her accomplishments.  It was too bad, then, that they hadn’t prepared her for what was coming. 

Nothing could.

Because as strong as she had become, she was still a thousand years away from reaching the point where she could truly impact any given battle against greater gods.  But maybe there was some way she and everyone else could be useful.  If not for Zeke’s sake, then for theirs. 

By the time she finished her tale, Zeke hadn’t reached any further conclusions, but he didn’t need to.  It was enough to see her happy. 

Hopefully, he could protect that state of mind going forward.  He wanted to believe it was possible, but with the forces arrayed against him, he wasn’t so certain.  Greater gods were one thing, but the looming eternal war was something else entirely.  But for now, Talia’s giddiness at their reunion was enough.